ABSTRACT
When in January 1976, in response to a complex national and international crisis, President Kaunda of Zambia announced a state of public emergency, he in fact merely re-activated the dormant state of emergency that had been declared in July 1964 by the then Governor of Northern Rhodesia, in connexion with the rising of Alice Lenshina’s separatist church, commonly called ‘Lumpa’. In the rural areas of north-eastern Zambia the fighting between state troops and the church’ s members had ceased in October 1964, leaving an estimated death toll of about 1,500.2 But the state of emergency (implying increased powers for the government executive) was allowed to continue. It was renewed every six months and lived through both the attainment of territorial independence (October 1964) and the creation (December 1972) of the Second Republic under the exclusive leadership of Kaunda’s United National Independence Party (UNIP). The Lumpa aftermath, including the continued presence of thousands of Lumpa refugees in Zaire just across the Zambian border, was repeatedly cited as a reason for this continuation.3
